Hello antoinebuzad. Welcome to WDC! I'm Charlie. Thanks for sharing your writing with us. I hope this review finds you well. Let me know if you need help around the site.


Title/General Thoughts/Subject Matter: The title of this story, "Invalid Item" , was a strong attention-grabber when I read it on the “Read a Newbie” community page. I was interested after reading the description as well. We all know texting and driving is bad, but it’s always a good topic to mention. People tend to think that they aren’t going to be the one who will get hurt, but that obviously isn’t the case. I’m always the one yelling at people for texting if they’re driving with me in the car. It’s dangerous, not only for the driver, but also for the passengers and anyone else on the road at the time. Great subject to take on in a story!


What Worked: I think you did a good job of explaining who Damon was as a character. We know that he’s super popular, into sports, and has a full-ride scholarship to uni. That alone tells us that he has a lot going for him and a lot to lose. So when we see him texting and driving, there’s the scary moment of suspense knowing that something bad is going to happen to him or to someone else. The ending was sad because Damon lost nearly everything, but it was necessary to show the importance of the topic.


Technical Issues/Suggestions: The first thing I noticed is the lack of paragraphs. Oh my! Walls of text are so hard to read, especially for someone like me who can’t pay attention as is. I’d definitely get in there with an edit and break this up into paragraphs, if only for the readers’ benefit.

The next huge thing I noticed was that this story was TOLD to us rather than SHOWN to us. We have a character and you can show that character doing things, tell their background, etc… without simply saying: Damon is this person. Damon did this. Then Damon did that. Damon did that because X.” You know what I mean? You have the character set. All you have to do is throw him into the situation and show how it plays out. It will be much more exciting for a reader.

Technical things:

When Damon gets in the car he usually puts his phone on silent so that he can't hear it while driving and it doesn't distract him, but he forgot to do that on this day because I was just enjoying the night out and having fun.
Random switch from third person in the beginning to third person at the end?

At the last instance Damon looked up
“Instant” or “instance”?

On December 10, 2003 he was coming home after an outing with his friends, usually Damon is very safe when it comes to his driving.
Recurring issue here- the story switches from past tense (was) to present tense (is) several times throughout.


Final Thoughts: Overall, I thought this was a great topic to write into a story. Obviously, there are a lot of issues with people texting and driving, causing accidents and general mayhem just because they can’t wait until the car isn’t moving to check their messages. I think this story needs a heavy edit, not only on technical issues but on storytelling as well. Let me know if you edit and I’ll come reread it. Thanks again for sharing!


Best wishes,





My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .